SuperMicro 4U 24-BAY Chassis - Gotcha's??
- Thread starter NoProblemAtoll
- Start date
Notice: Page may contain affiliate links for which we may earn a small commission through services like Amazon Affiliates or Skimlinks.
I'm in a somewhat similar situation except I'm looking to move my server from the tower it's currently hosted in to this kind of chassis. Things important to me:
Any thoughts about why this might not work out well for me? Price is right but it seems quite a bit lower than what's been discussed so i'm worried i'm missing something.
2U Supermicro CSE-216 H8DME-2 24 Bay Server AMD QC 2.2GHz 16GB 4x 4GB | eBay
- I want to move my existing MB (X10-sl7) + e3-1245v3 + memory over.
- The above board has 8 sata ports which, as I understand, can be converted into two sas ports with a couple reverse breakout cables.
- I would prefer to deal with expanders as I don't want to mess around with a ton of SATA cables.
- I would be fine with moving over the ATX PSU currently in the tower but certainly that's not so important. More important is I don't want the wattage to go through the roof and, while it's in the garage, I'd rather not have it sound like a vacuum cleaner.
- For reference, my UPS says i'm pulling 120W right now... that includes a couple switches, a gateway, and cable modem.
- I'm using MergerFS right now and don't plan to move away from that for the primary storage system which means I don't need to have tons of disks spun up. Might do ZFS for some other stuff but that would come (much?) later
- Not sure how relevant this is but, I'm using ESXi on this and passing the storage straight through to the fileserver's VM. Dunno if any of the backplanes introduce issues
Any thoughts about why this might not work out well for me? Price is right but it seems quite a bit lower than what's been discussed so i'm worried i'm missing something.
2U Supermicro CSE-216 H8DME-2 24 Bay Server AMD QC 2.2GHz 16GB 4x 4GB | eBay
bought one several months ago, same item, same seller. no external rails.. just for reference. The seller is reliable also bought 846 from him 2 yrs ago.
Yeah I've seem Tam around for a bit and not heard anything bad so I'm comfortable on that front. I'm less comfortable on the other stuff
Are you from the 'burgh or is PGH your monogram?
Dont know what burgh means...Yeah I've seem Tam around for a bit and not heard anything bad so I'm comfortable on that front. I'm less comfortable on the other stuff
Are you from the 'burgh or is PGH your monogram?
I wanted to thank everyone for the input and assistance with my build. I am wrapping up the last details of the build now in large part thanks to the insights shared here.
I went with the SuperMicro 24-bay chassis and switched out the backplane to the use the BPN-SAS-846TQ. I liked the fact that the TQ was a straight though as in that is seemed more future compatible. I snagged (2)x Intel E5-2670v1 (SR0KX) CPU's for $70 a piece right before the price jumped back up to $95 a unit. I leveraged the Asrock Rack EP2C602 reference in the '32-Thread Xeon Monster' article opposed to using a server board because many of the server boards didn't seem to have true PCI-E 16x slot (many are PCI-E 16x sized slots running at only 4x or 8x). My motivation for wanted the PCI-E 16x Slots was because I wanted to run (2)x GTX 980's at full throughput. I'm not a gamer, rather I needed the GPU's to push (9)x LEDs in a 4K trading computer / development machine configuration. I leveraged (8)x HP 20" DisplayPort LEDs mounted to (2)x Ergotron DS-100 and (1)x freestanding Dell P2715Q 27" 4K IPS LED. If anyone is counting the # of outputs support by the chosen GPU's, (2)x GTX980's only support a MAX of (8)x Screens. As such I had to install a PCI-E 1x USB 3.0 card to connect (1)x of the 20" HP LED's through a DisplayLink USB3.0 adapter. Also the Asrock Rack EP2C602 does only have (8)x Dimm Slots opposed to (16)x so to afford myself the ability to go between 64GB and 128GB configuration options I used 16GB Dimms. The tip about the SuperMicro connector to standard motherboard power pin whip was clutch and avoid a lot of head scratching. I have installed Windows Server 2016 on a 500GB 2.5" Samsung 850 SSD. I populated the SuperMicro's (24)x hot swap bays with (24)x Seagate ST2000VX003 2TB 6G Drives connected to a Perc H700 daisy chained to Intel RES2SV240NC PCIe x4 SATA/SAS RAID 6Gb/s 24-port Expander Card. The storage will be configured in a RAID-60 for now (I'll play with ZFS at a later date). I knew that 4u rack mount chassis setup would be loud and was already prepared as I have a 4u GizMac XRACKPro2 Noise Reduction Rackmount Enclosure next to my desk that I will be dropping the SuperMicro into. (It used to house my FC SAN.) If its still loud I'll change out the PSU's. (I might also need to validated the Asrock bios are properly setting the case fan speeds.)
The last thing I am waiting on are the power splitters and Molex to 6-PIN Video Card Power adapters to hot up the (2)x GForce 980's. Once I see the fit and clearance, I may also order SuperMicro sliding rails to replace the to the fixed rack shelf rails that are currently in the enclosure.
I'm super excited with how the system came together. Barring anything unforeseen I and managed to combined my Hyper-V Host server, Trading Computer, and SAN together into an upgraded package that fits into a 4U footprint.
Again, thanks for the all the guidance!!
I went with the SuperMicro 24-bay chassis and switched out the backplane to the use the BPN-SAS-846TQ. I liked the fact that the TQ was a straight though as in that is seemed more future compatible. I snagged (2)x Intel E5-2670v1 (SR0KX) CPU's for $70 a piece right before the price jumped back up to $95 a unit. I leveraged the Asrock Rack EP2C602 reference in the '32-Thread Xeon Monster' article opposed to using a server board because many of the server boards didn't seem to have true PCI-E 16x slot (many are PCI-E 16x sized slots running at only 4x or 8x). My motivation for wanted the PCI-E 16x Slots was because I wanted to run (2)x GTX 980's at full throughput. I'm not a gamer, rather I needed the GPU's to push (9)x LEDs in a 4K trading computer / development machine configuration. I leveraged (8)x HP 20" DisplayPort LEDs mounted to (2)x Ergotron DS-100 and (1)x freestanding Dell P2715Q 27" 4K IPS LED. If anyone is counting the # of outputs support by the chosen GPU's, (2)x GTX980's only support a MAX of (8)x Screens. As such I had to install a PCI-E 1x USB 3.0 card to connect (1)x of the 20" HP LED's through a DisplayLink USB3.0 adapter. Also the Asrock Rack EP2C602 does only have (8)x Dimm Slots opposed to (16)x so to afford myself the ability to go between 64GB and 128GB configuration options I used 16GB Dimms. The tip about the SuperMicro connector to standard motherboard power pin whip was clutch and avoid a lot of head scratching. I have installed Windows Server 2016 on a 500GB 2.5" Samsung 850 SSD. I populated the SuperMicro's (24)x hot swap bays with (24)x Seagate ST2000VX003 2TB 6G Drives connected to a Perc H700 daisy chained to Intel RES2SV240NC PCIe x4 SATA/SAS RAID 6Gb/s 24-port Expander Card. The storage will be configured in a RAID-60 for now (I'll play with ZFS at a later date). I knew that 4u rack mount chassis setup would be loud and was already prepared as I have a 4u GizMac XRACKPro2 Noise Reduction Rackmount Enclosure next to my desk that I will be dropping the SuperMicro into. (It used to house my FC SAN.) If its still loud I'll change out the PSU's. (I might also need to validated the Asrock bios are properly setting the case fan speeds.)
The last thing I am waiting on are the power splitters and Molex to 6-PIN Video Card Power adapters to hot up the (2)x GForce 980's. Once I see the fit and clearance, I may also order SuperMicro sliding rails to replace the to the fixed rack shelf rails that are currently in the enclosure.
I'm super excited with how the system came together. Barring anything unforeseen I and managed to combined my Hyper-V Host server, Trading Computer, and SAN together into an upgraded package that fits into a 4U footprint.
Again, thanks for the all the guidance!!
I have an LSI 9260-8i and 8 4TB WD Reds. I am looking to transplant my setup into something with 20 - 24 bays. Can anyone recommend me a setup (maybe even an ebay link?) that would support this? I'd like Supermicro with 24 bays but the whole backplane thing is perplexing.
Start with post #2 in this thread. Do you have specific questions after reading it?
Ask the seller for the backplane model number. Then you can compare. You want the SAS2 backplane or the TQ backplane.
SAS2 is nice as you can run one SAS cable from the HBA and run all 24 bays. TQ needs more cables, but could be faster if you eventually did SSDs or similar. With 8x spinners, you will be fine either way.
SAS1 should be avoided as they tend to run into problems with drives >2TB eventually.
I am looking to install some SSDs, so perhaps I should go with the TQ model? Does that require a SAS Expander?
WD Reds are almost certainly SATA. In that case you probably don't want either of the SAS expander backplanes*. Although that means that you'd need to add another controller if you wanted to add more drives, and you couldn't have a hardware RAID that used drives from 2 or more controllers (although you can build additional RAID volumes from the added drives on the additional controllers). If you're OK with that, the vanilla backplane should be fine for you - it has SFF-8087 connectors, just like your existing controller. You could also use the TQ backplane with SFF-8087 breakout cables, but that's a bit messier and you may or may not get the SGPIO (extra LED per drive bay) working with a breakout cable.
If you're thinking of SSDs in the future, that's probably another reason to avoid an expander - your controller is a 6Gb/sec SAS2, while the newest generation is 12Gb/sec SAS3. You don't want the controller-to-expander path to be a bottleneck.
On the other hand, if you are giving serious thought to SSDs, a chassis with 3.5" drive bays can be a big waste of space if you're going to fill the slots with 2.5" SSDs.
* My experience with SATA drives behind SAS expanders is "it works fine - until it doesn't". It runs into trouble right when you don't want it to - if a drive hangs, the expander usually goes "Resets for everybody!" which causes additional drives to briefly drop offline (and out of the RAID array).
Terry thanks a ton for the reply. So please forgive me, I am used to working with enterprise gear that is already paired with backplane/controller. I have a RAID50 VD built on my current 9260-8i which I am fine with not being able to extend on. I am looking at creating a small SSD pool for fast storage (RAID10, probably) but I would only use 4 disk or so (500G-1TB). That would come at a later date. Right now, I am about 85% full on ~22TB usable so I need to expand that and I want to stay w/ 3.5" 4TB disks. I would create another VD either RAID50 or RAID6. I run ESXi on this server so I would just present it as an additional datastore. You say "the vanilla backplane should be fine" - which is that? The TQ backplane sounds a lot like what I am doing now - I have SFF-8087 break out (4 sata plugs), so I am using two SFF-8087 to 8 SATA connectors in all. The drive LEDs are not critical to me as I document my disk and position by serial #.
I am not worried as much with raw throughput as I am with IOPS from an SSD perspective so I am not hugely hung up on 6 Gb/s since it does random small blocks pretty well. I can't fit my current E5-2970 setup in a 2U since I built everything out (10 GbE fiber, Noctua HSFs, etc.) for 4U and I like the lower noise. I guess I just need to understand how to tell which chassis comes with which backplane so I can not do this incorrectly.
I actually have a Dell R510 12-bay with LSI 9211 flashed to IT mode running as a bare metal FreeNAS box w/ 10 GbE, 64GB of RAM, etc., all doing NFS and iSCSI to a 2-host ESXi 6.5 cluster - so I am pretty decent with the actual storage layout/etc. I just need to figure out the Supermicro sorcery behind backplanes vs. chassis.
I meant the non-expander SFF-8087 backplane, which these days is often called "A". I don't know if it was always A or if that's a revision of a no-suffix backplane. TQ is the same as the A, except it has individual 7-pin connectors instead of the 4-drive SFF-8087 connectors. EL1 is a single-path expander while EL2 is a dual-path expander (which is only useful if you have SAS dual-port drives). This is from the SC836 chassis (3RU w/ 16-drive backplane). Other models may or may not offer all 4 flavors of backplane (for example, there's no real need for an expander on a 1RU 4-drive backplane).
In addition to those different types of backplanes, there are different revisions of them. This is most important with the expander (EL1/EL2) backplanes as the expander chips limit the backplane's capabilities. Look for "SAS2", which will give you support for 6Gb/sec transfers and drives > 2TB, or "SAS3" which is newer and 12Gb/sec. Some people report that larger drives work fine if the chassis isn't fully populated. I suspect it depends on the firmware version in the backplane, which is not available for download from Supermicro and requires fiddling with jumpers, etc. if you manage to get it from Supermicro by special request. The likelihood of success depends on whether the chassis is in warranty and if you're the original purchaser - used chassis from eBay likely flunk both of those requirements.
I'm pretty sure that almost all Dell chassis with > 8 drives have expanders built in. The NX3100 which uses the same chassis, motherboard, and PERC controller as the R510 definitely has an expander. If you've had success with generic SATA drives in that system, you may want to ignore my comment about SATA drives behind SAS expanders. In that case, either of the SAS2-xxxEL1 or SAS2-xxxEL2 backplanes would give you a similar setup to what you have in the R510. But if you're using SAS drives in the R510, that doesn't say anything about how SATA drives would perform in a similar configuration. When Dell sells SATA drives for the R510 / NX3100, each drive caddy has a SAS / SATA converter to get around the problem.
Back to Supermicro, a lot of sellers don't know / seem to care about what they're selling. Look for the Supermicro part number on a picture of the chassis (unless it is the dreaded "stock photo"). I'd also suggest confirming with the seller before purchasing, as shipping for returning one of these systems is likely to be expensive, or worse if you're outside the country and had to pay import fees. With confirmation from the seller, you have a better chance of getting eBay to refund you on a "not as described" claim. Or you can purchase from the "for sale" forum here, if a member has what you're looking for.
Supermicro's online documentation is generally for the latest revision of a product. and if it doesn't match what you get, you'll have to search for an older manual or ask Supermicro for it. "I can't find the manual" is likely to work better than "I just bought this used without a manual".
Note: All hotlinks in this post are auto-inserted advertising links, not links from me.
Thanks again Terry
So if I ordered this: 4U Supermicro Superchassis SC846E1-R900B 24 Bay SAS SATA Chassis JBOD Server | eBay
Could I then just get a SAS2 backplane and swap it in?
So if I ordered this: 4U Supermicro Superchassis SC846E1-R900B 24 Bay SAS SATA Chassis JBOD Server | eBay
Could I then just get a SAS2 backplane and swap it in?
Generally, yes. It is best to get a backplane with the metal bracket, as sometimes Supermicro changes the way the backplane mounts to the bracket and you can run into problems with just the bare backplane board.